On 8 October, the Government announced that it will bring forward new regulations requiring mandatory independent scrutiny of pre-pack administration sales where connected parties, including the former company’s existing directors or shareholders, are involved in the purchase.
Challenging a Tenant CVA
Company Voluntary Agreements ("CVAs") have been the go-to option for struggling retail businesses over the pandemic period. While all creditors are generally treated equally under a CVA, landlords are increasingly finding themselves at the short end where they are the only, or one of, a very small pool of, creditors taking a hit. It is now more important than ever that a landlord knows the circumstances by which they can challenge a tenant's CVA.
This summer’s landmark Supreme Court decision in Michael J Lonsdale (Electrical) Ltd v Bresco Electrical Services Ltd (in Liquidation) [2020] UKSC 25 (“Bresco”) would have doubtless been interesting news for Insolvency Practitioners (“IPs”) engaged in the construction sector.
The damage that the COVID pandemic has done to the food and beverage sector has been widely reported. Plenty of well-known and well-loved restaurants and pubs have entered into an insolvency process or formally restructured their debts in an effort to survive.
As England enters its second period of lockdown, commercial landlords are reminded that the temporary measures put in place by the UK Government earlier this year, protecting commercial tenants from eviction and the operation of CRAR and restrictions on the use of certain insolvency processes, are set to continue during the second lockdown and beyond.
The measures are intended to protect business tenants that are unable to pay their rent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The key measures
IP licensing and insolvency reform: ipso facto clauses
Licensors of intellectual property rights may soon be unable to terminate licenses where the licensee has gone into an insolvency process.
What are ipso facto clauses and why do they matter?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The re-introduction of Crown preference and the resulting change in the order of priority of creditors on insolvency was announced as part of the Autumn budget in 2018, way before anyone had heard of coronavirus or COVID-19, and was originally due to come into force on 6 April 2020. It was delayed until 1 December 2020 in terms of the 2020 budget which was presented to Parliament on 11 March 2020, the same day as the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic.
Scottish landlords enjoy a preferential right of security known as “landlord’s hypothec” in respect of any unpaid rent arrears due in the event that their tenants enters administration or liquidation. The landlord's right of hypothec is unique to Scots Law and is not available to landlords in respect of properties south of the border. For reasons we will go on to discuss, the current legal framework on landlord’s hypothec is not particularly well developed and is widely criticised as being unsatisfactory.
In several recent judgments in cases centring on complex commercial and regulatory disputes, the High Court has grappled with a number of important aspects of legal professional privilege under English law. Certain of these decisions, and their implications for parties to such disputes, are highlighted below.
Litigation privilege: sole or dominant purpose